2, 4, 6, 8 houseboy

Houseboy Baruch Bento de Benedictus is leading a protest that I have fallen down on posting sufficient houseboy / beefcake entries. I promise to do better, unless I don't

P&P

We watch Pride and Prejudice yesterday and it wasn't bad, nobody embarrassed themselves, Matthew Macfadyen as Darcy was very good, in fact, and Judy Dench as Lady de Bourg was as fabulous as ever, but it was no big deal. Trying to cram such a complicated book into a movie means everything feels rushed and since they had cast pretty Big Stars in relatively small roles (Donald Sutherland as Mr. Bennet, for instance) the producers apparently felt the need to make them all appealing. Part of the interest in the story is the flaws all the characters have; you remove them and the whole thing deflates a little. Plus it was very Bodice Ripper looking (just cast your peepers on that poster of it below) and that is so very Not Jane Austen. I'd say stick with the 1995 Colin Firth version.

Showing My Pride

It's Gay Pride Weekend in San Francisco. Parades tonight (trannies), tomorrow evening (lesbians) and the big one on Sunday (everybody else) disrupting life all over town, but in a good way. Discos, sex clubs, solemn consciousness raising celebrations, and brunch, brunch, brunch. We never go to the parade or the gigantamundo celebration down by City Hall because, you know, ick, but to show my solidarity, I plan on staying home and watching Pride and Prejudice from Netflix. The Keira Knightley one.

Right on.

Peachy

Here's hoping all your peaches this summer are as spectacularly tasty as these, peaches so luscious and pretty I had force myself to stop wolfing them down long enough to take this picture. For you.

File under "Hmmm."

So I was looking up Jeff Chandler (why not?) which, of course, made me think of Esther Williams ("Jeff, you're too big for polka dots." look it up.) and in stalking her briefly I ran across this amazing blurb from her autobiography:

"Cary and I had known each other for years, having spent time together at many parties and public events, although we never had been close friends. But movie stars all belong to a sort of secret society; we share a special understanding of the burdens and comforts of celebrity. There is a shorthand we can use when we meet, and we empathize in ways other people cannot comprehend if they haven't stood in the spotlight. He came to the telephone immediately when I gave my name to his secretary. When I said, "Cary, I've got to see you right away about something," he invited me to come to his office at Universal the next morning.

"Cary, I'm at the end of my rope," I told him the following day. "I'm deeply troubled about my life, and when I read what you said about how LSD had changed your life, I wondered if it might help me."

"Esther, it takes a lot of courage to take this drug," he warned me. "You may not want to do it when I tell you what it's like, because it's a tremendous jolt to your mind, to your ego. Some people don't react well to it at all."

"But it was so successful with you."

"Yes it was," he admitted, with a flash of his glittering "Cary Grant" smile. "But it's only being used on an experimental basis. You'd have to be as desperate as I was to try it."

I smiled back my own "Esther Williams" smile. "But I am as desperate, Cary," I said as calmly as I could. "I need to find some answers, fast. Would you call your doctor and make an appointment for me?".."

Esther Williams, tripping. Hmmm.

Dog Days

Of course, we San Franciscans are terribly spoiled; lots of beautiful views, nice weather, good food and cute boys will do that to you. So when anything comes along to upset that, we tend to whine and sulk. The whine and sulk level is pretty high these days. Wildfires north and east of here have been spitting smoke all over the Bay Area since last weekend and every day it's a little worse. The light has an odd harsh yellow quality about it, the sky is a dirty pale gray and today you can definitely smell the wood smoke. It makes your throat sore just looking out the window. You don't need to point out things could be worse, earthquakes in China, floods in the midwest, Cher in Las Vegas - I got it. I'm just contributing my own little bit to the local Whine and Sulk Festival.

Two grooms walk into a bar....

It may be dull reading over and over about gay marriage if you're not here in California, but for me it's thrilling. Something I had long grown accustomed to thinking would never happen has flipped over into reality. Plus, suddenly it's everywhere here. On Saturday we saw two big guys in matching formal kilts walking down 18th street in the Castro; two girls giggling down Market Street carrying a big (we assumed) wedding cake in a box, our waiter at lunch today told us all about his wedding last week in City Hall. And now we're planning ours. Woo hoo! As I told Diane von Austinburg, all I've gotten down so far is that we'll have a tamales, but what else is there? Her response? Cake.

O yeah.

The Green Eyed Monster

I have green eyes. Thanks to Wikipedia ( and thanks to my own willingness to waste time reading various Wiki articles rather than being productive) I have discovered that fewer than 2% of the world can say that.Since I'm a gay man who's bored by Stephen Sondheim, I am obviously part of very refined, tiny group.

I had already known my eye color represented a minority population (as Margaret Cho said "Where's my parade?) Among my 21 cousins and three brothers, none had green eyes. As a youth, this led to the sort of clumsy banter about illegitimacy you could expect from a bunch of moderately bright kids who had just learned about genetics and sex. Moronic asshats. They're probably all sitting around listening to Sunday in the Park with George right now.

To make things worse, or more extravagant, I also have a tiny ring of gold around the pupil. That's right, I have the eyes of the heroine of a bodice ripper. Green eyes with a gold center, you get that description down and the book practically writes itself.

Lord Ivabottom stared deeply into her emerald eyes, flecked with tawny gold, blazing like radioactive english peas. "How dare you!" she panted "Unhand me at once!" I shall title it And Dangerous to Know. On sale soon at fine airport bookstores everywhere.

Alert the media

Looky, I found the perfect picture for our wedding announcement!

Just another night

We came home through a beautiful warm San Francisco afternoon today, down through the canyon where everything smelled like eucalyptus and summer. We hung out on the patio a little, where the iris is blooming and the big yellow rose is showing off and jasmine and angel's trumpet and who knows what all. We played with the cat who was terribly amusing and energetic as a dervish. I cut up the most satisfying huge red tomato and sliced roasted beets that I dressed with balsamic vinegar. Delicious. We talked about our wedding, we talked about R Man's grandmother, we talked about our friends. I played with the cat some more. It was the most perfectly ordinary evening, but more importantly it has been the most perfect evening, period. In the scheme of things, it really hasn't been that long since I was staying up late blogging to keep from going to bed and worrying about R Man, alone in the hospital with his chest cracked open for heart surgery. So yeah, I'm perfectly happy with a perfectly ordinary night.

Houseboy "for Rent"

Honestly, I cannot turn my back on you bitches. Apparently, Someone tricked poor little houseboy Gustavus Albrechtus into wearing this perfectly appalling tee shirt by convincing him it was a tribute to the Broadway show. And you wouldn't believe how much trouble I had getting him to put his pants back on. Honestly.

Wedding Belles

The San Francisco Chronicle's website www.sfgate.com is filled today with dozens and dozens of pictures of the gays getting married. It's thrilling and touching to see them all, everybody is so happy. But in the middle of all the heart-tugging cuddliness, this is my favorite picture, it seems to truly embody real marriage. Two guys getting ready for their trip down the aisle and you just know the queen on the left is saying "NO I DON"T KNOW WHERE YOUR PHONE IS. Why do you always lose it? Did you look in your brown jacket? Maybe it's in the kitchen. Are we going to be late AGAIN?" Ain't love grand?

Wedding Bells.

R Man and I have been together 27 years, 20 of them here in San Francisco. We plan on marrying this fall, in our home, surrounded by our friends. All we have to do is wring a time out of the Diane von Austinberg for when she can be here to set the date. She'll be our flowergirl.

Neither of us is comfortable with publicly expressed emotions; we may be gay guys, but we’re guys after all. I think that may be one of the reasons why we’re doing this. We want to make a stand against all the negative training that our whole lives spent in the shadow of the straight world has taught us. I want to confront all the forces that have always said “No, you can’t” to me and retort “Yes, I will.” I want to publicly announce how important he is to me, how I love him. And I think our wedding can do that.

Houseboy Crunk

Oh, these kids today. Houseboy Helmuth Plessner Constantus has announced he would prefer to be known by his new name "Rappin' Robbie, the Beatbox wit de Beatin' Box." Whatever. I liked it better when he wanted us to call him Bunnie, but I knew that wouldn't last. Plus I think I may have hurt his feelings when I pointed out people who are whiter than Olive Oyl are just asking for grief when they chose rap as their art form. Anyway, I suppose this portends another round of spoken word performances in the dorm. Oh, well.

Lost Angeles

The brilliant Muscato points us to a collection of photos from the L.A. Times Herald that the Los Angeles Public Library has posted on their website at http://www.lapl.org/virgal/

My fave? Not the photo, but rather the caption (or "cutline" as they say) below.

Almost “life-sized shoes” of police officer John M. Yates, who kicked Herald-Express photographer Eddie Phillips in the groin after Phillips took photograph of camera shy officer. A witness stated that the shoes “were the largest thing [I] ever saw that didn't have a liver in it.”

Oh yeah.

Tuna time

OK, so I said I wasn't going to write griping, snarky posts ever again, that this would be a blog devoted to magic flying ponies and pretty colors, but I lied. Sue me bitch.

The project I mentioned being so behind on was simply updating a quarterly calendar of the training events I oversee. (As a side note, let me just say that I have finished it. I know you all were just sick with worry over it.) One of the hold ups was a woman, whom I'm actually quite fond of, normally, and who shall remain nameless (Janet). Yesterday afternoon she sent me a testy email bitching about my not being clear about the calendar's deadlines. A quarterly calendar. Let's see, old thing, we've been working together on this for three years and this is the twelfth time you've been late. Hmm. Maybe the deadline is THREE FUCKING MONTHS AFTER THE LAST FUCKING ONE. Anyway. Back to the magic flying ponies.

Or a much happier note, I read this afternoon the theatrical geniuses who brought us Tuna, Texas are back at it. Here's the scoop on Tuna swiped with love from Wikipedia: "

Greater Tuna is the first in a trilogy of comedic plays (followed by A Tuna Christmas and Red, White and Tuna), each set in the fictional town of Tuna, Texas, the "third-smallest" town in the state. The trilogy was written by Jaston Williams, Joe Sears, and Ed Howard. The plays are at once an affectionate comment on small-town, Southern life and attitudes but also a withering satire of same. Of the three plays, Greater Tuna is the darkest in tone.
The plays are notable in that two men play the entire cast of over twenty eccentric characters of both genders and various ages. Greater Tuna debuted in Austin, Texas in Fall 1981...."

The local gay rag reports the boys have broken down and are preparing to debut a new Tuna offering, which I suppose will make the series the only four part trilogy on record. Tuna Does Vegas. I'm all a twitter. Go here for the story http://ebar.com/arts/art_article.php?sec=theatre&article=403

I love all the Tunas. The writers specialize in the cheesy laughs I'm so fond of. Even those of you fortunate enough not to have a small Texas town in your background must find the image of an elderly woman running over her husband's prized dog so that he won't realize she has poisoned it pretty darn amusing. Or not. Depends. Anyway, I'm looking forward to the gala premier like Mr. First Nighter. I'll be reporting back on it.

New Tag

I got tired of ignoring the tag/meme thingies that came my way and have decided to make up one of my own. Allow me to present the Mrpeenee Auto Haiku Tag Meme tm.

Here’s how it goes:

In five syllables, no more, no less, describe the worst movie you can think of. Bonus points if you have to show off your Google skills because you can’t remember the name of it and all you can come up with is that it features Roz Russell and Sandra Dee. Turns out it was some tripe called Rosie! Exclamation point the producers’ idea, not mine.

“Auntie Mame leavings.”

In seven syllables, no more, no less, describe your worst date. Bonus points if it was sordid. Subtract points if it sounds too much like an overweight fifteen year old Goth girl.

“He pushed my head down. I puked.”

In five syllables, no more, no less, describe the worst job you ever had. Extra bonus points if it consists of Grim. Taxi dancer. Miss Janey, I’m talking to you. I had a miserable spell where I sat all alone in an empty office, handing out the keys to various hell holes for rent around New Orleans. One Lady came back and complained there was no window in the kitchen, I pretended to sympathize and said something like “Yes it would be nasty to have no light and air in there.” She replied “No, hone, you don unnerstan. Dere’s a hole for de winna but ain’t no winna in it.”

“Slum lord in training.”

Put it all together and you have a haiku of life’s low points.

“Auntie Mame leavings.
He pushed my head down. I puked.
Slum lord in training.”


I tag Muscato, Jason, Are You There Blog, Miss Janey and tigeryogiji.

Quitting Time

Did I ever tell you about my first job? Andrew, way down under at The Other Andrew, has pulled the rip cord on his job and announced he's quitting to the ingrates he toils for (editor's note: right on, Andrew.) which puts me in mind of my first experience with gainful employment. Semi-gainful, actually.

I was employed by Sears Roebuck, in their catalogue department, in the little hell hole I grew up in. Giant containers of rubbishy goods would pour in and I would have to sort it all out to be handed over to the eager catalogue customer. This was long before amazon.com and UPS had revised the equation. The customer would have to actually come into the store and wait at some soul-deadening counter to have us fork over whatever polyester miracle their fancy had lit upon. The counter was green formica, the walls were green, the fluorescent light was green; we might as well have been working underwater.

My boss was a withered gargoyle named Inez Duncan. Miz Duncan to you, sucker. She had no life, her only passion was the Sears catalogue department. If you can imagine a more hateful version of the Church Lady, you have a close approximation of Miz Duncan.

There was no consideration of "workers rights." Communist bastard. We regularly worked overtime for no extra pay, breaks were viewed as some slacker luxury and my fellow inmates bought into this wholeheartedly. They were all middle aged southern ladies of the trashiest white trash extraction and I suppose the job was a welcome relief from the old man back in the trailer.

I was young and had no idea that work wasn't supposed to be oppressive. I sliced my hand open during the Christmas rush and worked for nine hours with a rag wrapped around it. The guy who shared my duties got fed up and just walked out one day and I was berated for his disloyalty.

After I had been there a little more than a year, my brother invited me to go on a camping trip with him. Miz Duncan not only turned down my pathetic whimper for a week off, she was actually trembling when she forbade me to talk about it. I was standing there surrounded by aisles of Sears flotsam and jetsam shrinking in front of this pathetic tiny old bat when I had an epiphany: I didn't have to take this crap. Up to that point it had never occurred to me that I might have a choice in the equation. I had assumed part of having a job was swallowing all the shit that was dished out with it.

I can still cheer myself up during low moments now by remembering Miz Duncan's look of astonishment and baffled rage when I said "Well, then I quit." Happy times.

Cube Life

I am now closing in on two weeks behind on a project at work. I keep expecting panic to set in and motivate me, but instead I sit around reading other blogs and listening to Erasure, practicing drag queen gestures.

"This time I won't end up another victim of luuuhuv."

Hello the Houseboys

We want to extend a warm welcome to our newest houseboy, Auberon Herbertus. We found Auby accidentally trapped in a crate of spices and unguents from Oman shipped here by our dear Muscato. We think it was an accident, anyway. There's no telling with Muscato when she's on a caffeine binge. Auby's fine now thanks, and we've decided to let him organize the summer Track Meet and Bakeoff to settle him in. If you see him, give him a big hug and say Hello! He seems very friendly.

Sunday, June 8 to do

I find making to do lists after the fact much more effective. That way, you don't have to list all those things you didn't get around to doing. Life is hard enough without some stupid list badgering you with high-minded, but uncompleted tasks. Here's today's:

1. Wake up
2. Remember it’s Sunday
3. Go back to sleep
4. Repeat 1,2 and 3 until 10ish
5. Get up
6. Play with cat
7. Discuss life with boyfriend
8. Decide where to go to brunch
9. Ablutions
10. Dash off to Zuni Café
• Delicious Latte
• Delicious scone
• Delicious tarragon eggs
• Delicious apricot tart
11. Taste boyfriend’s entrée, smugly decide yours is better
12. Go to Costco, hope earthquake doesn’t hit, burying you beneath a mountain of toilet paper
13. Go to lesbian-centic, coopertive owned, vegetarian grocery for communist food. Very San Francisco.
14. Return home
15. Play with cat, part two
16. Nap
17. Complain bitterly about how short the weekend is
18. Dinner, communist vegetables.

Cathouse Tales

But what about mrpeenee's new cat, Saki? I'm trying hard not to turn this into the All Saki, All the Time blog, but here's the latest.

The people at the cat jail where we adopted him estimated his age at 3 years, but our vet pooh-poohed that and said he was much younger. Life with him has confirmed his diagnosis, he's obviously just barely outgrown kittenhood and is in fact just a teenager. A boy teenager, and you know how dangerous they are. I expect any day to come home and find him all gothed out, sullen and listening to Death Metal.

He loves to play, catch the string, chase, feathers-on-a-wand, anything that involves interaction with me. When we met him in the lock-up he was terribly sweet, purring in our laps and rolling over on his back. Turns out that adorableness was an act, partly caused by the malnourishment he had been living with on the streets and partly to lure us into bringing him home. Of course, it worked. Now, after a month of very high priced fancy raw cat food, he has morphed into a miniature tiger.

I think he really is very sweet natured and once he grows out of this rambunctiousness (soon, please god) it will be more obvious. He sleeps with R Man and reports from there tell of snuggling up and purring at beddy bye time, but he looks at me as somebody to play with and I have to say, I like that too. He performs the most amazing acrobatics when chasing feathers on a string, midair somersaults and leaps like Nijinsky. Oh, so cute.

Ties that Bind

I was reading in the Wall Street Journal yesterday that the trade association that represents manufacturers of men’s ties is closing because so few men are still wearing ties. The story quoted a Gallup poll showing only 6% of men wore ties everyday to work. I myself finally stopped wearing them sometime in the last couple of years, after close to thirty years of knotting my neck every day to go to work, no matter how schmucky the job. Waiter, desk clerk, professional-whatever-it-is-I-am all had one thing in common: ties. And now that I’ve stopped wearing them I don’t want everyone else to run free, too. My Liberty is only precious in direct correlation to how much everyone else has to suffer. Waiter, a round of schadenfreude, please.

Over the years of neck bondage, R Man has loaded me up with a wardrobe of beautiful, beautiful ties. They are, after all the only pretty fabrics a man not of the tranny persuasion gets to wear. Sulfur yellow ties from the early 80’s, cobalt blue to go with black suits, psycho-delic paisley in hot pink and orange, I’m set. I just don’t wear them.

And then this morning on the subway I saw a tiny earnest young man struggling grimly to knot one. It was a monster, wide as something from the Jimmy Carter administration and that stiff ribbed silk that makes a big honkin knot but that’s murder to work with. I watched in condescending sympathy, since I long since mastered both the four-in-hand and the windsor (full and half) knots to the point where I could knock them off in the dark while carrying on a conversation and this guy seemed to really be having a hard time of it. My sympathy turned to amazement when he got up and it turned out to be a wee little lesbian doing boy accountant drag. I don’t know if that counts towards the 6% or not.

A Friendly Little Supper

We went out to dinner last night with our friends Karen and Randy and Isaac to celebrate Randy’s birthday (editor’s note: Happy Birthday old thing) at the fabulous, fabulous Range. Comfortable with personable waiters and delicious food, what could be better? Such an amusing evening always brings up the question Why don’t we do this more often? Why is so hard to make time to get together with the people you love? Karen and Randy are both ebullient and charming and love to tell very funny stories and Isaac is so poised it’s hard to remember he’s only 13. So why do we only see them once or twice a year? I vividly remember when Karen was pregnant with Isaac (a tough time. Oooee. It makes me glad to be a gay boy with the plumbing I have) and now we’re reminiscing about his Bar Mitzvah. Still, I refuse to make promises to be better about this since I know it would just be a lie. Indolence may be a vice, but I have more interesting ones to worry about first.

Diane Day

We're sending Birthday Greetings out to our best girl, Diane von Austinberg. Queen of the thrift stores, culinary whiz, and all around cheat at Boggle, there is no one dearer to our hearts. Oh honey, here's to ya. I'm looking forward to long, Peet's fueled walks on the beach soon.

Tag Time, Part Two

Miss Janey’s Tag

What Was I Doing Ten Years Ago – 1998
’98 was an odd year. The year before, R Man and I had bought our house and immediately found out he had cancer and had to go through chemo while entertaining a nonstop stream of friends who wanted to show support and see the house at the same time. By 1998, he was in remission (yay) and we were worn out by entertaining. I’m pretty sure we didn’t actually do anything that whole year.

5 Things On My To Do List For Today
1 Don’t slap anybody.
2 Don’t let anyone catch me asleep at my desk.
3 Don’t make eye contact with the lunatic at the head of the Embarcadero Station escalator.
4 Don’t forget to come back from lunch.
5 Don’t.

Snacks I Enjoy
1 Anything by Lil Debbie. Miss Janey also listed the fine, fine snack products crafted by Lil Debbie. What a coincidence.
2 Homemade guacamole.
3 Cottage cheese with blueberries, bananas and honey. I know that sounds suspiciously virtuous, but it’s true.

Things I Would Do If I Was a Billionaire
You know those reality shows where they go into somebody’s incredibly messy house and wheedle them into parting with their crap and then re-decorate it and everybody hugs at the end? I would pay those same kind of filthy people to allow me to come into their pig stys and scream the abuse directly at them that I direct to the tv during the show now. “Are you a freak?” “Adults don’t live like this.” “You’re disgusting.” “I wouldn’t walk in your kitchen, let alone eat food from there.” “Hauling home every piece of crap from the junk store you can carry is a SICKNESS.”

Typically these shows have an Organizer who spends a great deal of time and money on big plastic tubs in which she neatly places their detritus. Obviously, that’s just enabling their feeble minded inabilities. I would have my muscular and very attractive assistants restrain them while I shoveled all the piles of garbage they fill their squalid shack with into a very large dumpster. My goal would be to empty their house and make them cry. And then I would leave.


Places I Have Lived
1 Kingsville, Texas, where I was born
2 Baytown, Texas, where I grew up. A swamp with a very large oil refinery in the middle. Mud and carcinogenic petrochemicals, that’s spells home to me.
3 Austin, Texas, where I attended the University of Texas, and by “attended” I mean “smoked tons of the dope and skipped classes until I was asked to leave.”
4 Seattle, Washington. How can such a clean, boring city generate so many sexually transmitted diseases?
5 New Orleans. O honey, how I love, love, love NOLA. It’s where I came into my own, met the man I love, and figured out, pretty much, how to live. And good food, too.
6 San Francisco. Home. I’m still amazed that I wound up here. It’s so pretty, and cool, and charming.

Tag Time, Part One

I have been tagged, not once, but twice recently, and while I was sick, too. Tagging is a bloggers' game where one’s brethren in Blog Land pass along a quiz for you to finish and post and then pass along yourself, much like gonorrhea. These two tags were foisted on me by the notorious J*O*E and Miss Janey (links over there on the right) two writers who I used to think were charming and amusing, but who I now see as the low, scheming brutes they really are. Plus, I think I sort of maybe heard that they kind of killed somebody once. In New Mexico, I think.

Anyway, here’s Joe’s:

Pick up the nearest book.
Open to page 123.
Locate the fifth sentence.
Post the next three sentences on your blog and in so doing...
Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged me.


The nearest book is Fallen by Tim Lebbon. Great science fiction/steam punk/fantasy, very much influenced by China Mieville and H.G. Wells, who are two pretty divergent writers. Page 123 is about a third of the way through and I was glad to get there since prior to that the story was taken up almost entirely with Ominous Forboding and I was getting tired of waiting for the action. Turns out it was worth the wait.

Here’s the page 123 fifth sentence and so on:
His face changed a little when he saw her tears, and she was certain there was a hint of regret. But regret can only go so far. And once some things are said, there is no unsaying them.

“You’re right,” Nomi said.

Hmmm. I guess you’ll have to take my word for it, this is a really solid, entertaining book. Maybe not page 123, but all the rest, for sure.

The problem with this tag is that all the other bloggers I read seem to have already been snagged by it, so I’m trouble coming up with five more to pass it on to. I shall inflict it on Pipedreams, Tigeryogiji, Night is Half Gone, Muscato, and Mean Dirty Pirate. I apologize deeply, but not sincerely.